NBA, MLB, MLS and NHL restrict journalists' access to the locker room. In addition, they suspend the Playoffs of the Ivy League, one of the conferences that gives access to the famous university March Madness.
Hygiene message in the NBA Utah Jazz pavilion.
The sport of U.S has begun to take measures to avoid the crisis caused by the epidemic of coronavirus in the competitions that were, and have, to be played in Asia and Europe.
After the words of Lebron James, star of Los Angeles Lakers, in which it refused to play NBA games without the public, the basketball league has announced, along with the other major sports leagues in the country, the first restrictions to curb the contagion. In the NBA, MLS (football), NHL (ice hockey) and MLB (baseball) journalists will no longer be able to access the locker rooms to chat with the players, as they have done until now.
“All team locker rooms and venues will be open only to essential players and employees of teams and facilities until further notice,” reads the joint statement from the Big Four. In addition, the NBA will force journalists to be more than a meter from the athletes at times available for interviews, and has banned players from signing autographs and contacting fans of the pavilion.
For the moment, none of the four competitions has been forced to suspend Or celebrate a game behind closed doors, but that possibility is not ruled out in the near future and the franchises are already preparing for it, despite the criticism of LeBron James.
The NBA has just over a month to go to the start of the Playoffs, peak of the season after 82 regular league games. LeBron, days after those statements, said today that “he did not know that there was a real conversation about the virus. He would be disappointed if there are no people in the stands, but I have to listen to people who know about it“.
The Ivy League canceled
This week the NCAA College Basketball Conference Playoffs, prior to the famous' March Madness', the 'March Madness', one of the quintessential moments of North American sport. Whoever wins the conference tournament has direct access to the final tournament, which is held throughout the country throughout the month of March, and whose Final Four will be played in early April in the city of Atlanta.
One of the NCAA conferences, the Ivy League, in an unprecedented decision, has decided to cancel that fight for the title and give the Yale University team a champion, which thus automatically qualifies for the 'March Madness'.
It remains to be seen whether this decision brings with it a 'domin effect'in more conferences or even in the final tournament, one of the most followed and most money-generating events in American sport.
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